Selfie named word of the year for 2013

Celebs taking selfies – Television personalities Kim Kardashian and Willie Geist take a selfie during "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

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Celebs taking selfies – Academy Awards host Ellen DeGeneres takes a moment during the show to orchestrate a selfie with a group of stars. Bradley Cooper, seen in the foreground, was holding the phone at the time. "If only Bradley's arm was longer," DeGeneres tweeted. "Best photo ever." It reportedly became the most retweeted post of all time.

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Celebs taking selfies – Denmark's Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt snaps a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama during the memorial service of former South African President Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg on Tuesday, December 10.

Celebs taking selfies – Track star Usain Bolt takes a picture of himself under the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. Oxford defines a selfie as "a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website."

Celebs taking selfies – Duhamel and comedian JB Smoove take a selfie during a commercial break on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

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Story highlights

Oxford's word of the year was "selfie" due to the drastic climb in usage this year

Oxford Dictionaries are renowned as the guardian of the English language

"Selfie" can be spelled with "ie" or with a "y"

Usage has gone up 17,000% since this time last year

The most esteemed guardian of the English language has bestowed a prestigious honor upon debatably the most embarrassing phenomenon of the digital age: the selfie.

So, grab a smartphone, put on your best duck face and celebrate. Oxford Dictionaries' word for the year for 2013 is "selfie."

And when you share that filtered photo on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you'll join not just Anthony Weiner and Geraldo, but millions of others around the world perpetuating a tradition started over a decade ago, Oxford says.

The word "selfie" first popped up in an Australian chat room on September 13, 2002, to describe an undignified scene, the dictionaries' publishers believe.

This was the post: "Um, drunk at a mates 21st, I tripped ofer and landed lip first (with front teeth coming a very close second) on a set of steps. I had a hole about 1cm long right through my bottom lip. And sorry about the focus, it was a selfie."

By August this year, Oxford proclaimed it a real English-language word and gave it a place in the dictionary -- but that was merely a stepping stone to lingual infamy.

"Language research conducted by Oxford Dictionaries editors reveals that the frequency of the word selfie in the English language has increased by 17,000% since this time last year," Oxford wrote in justifying its choice.

"Selfie" beat out seven competitors, including "twerk," "schmeat" (synthetically produced meat) and "bitcoin" for the Word of the Year crown.

"Selfie" is not slouching on its thrown, Oxford says of its word of the year.

It has spawned herds of images on social media. There are 57 million photos bearing its hashtag -- #selfie -- on Instagram alone.